Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble and I'm your host for the Bible recap.

In ancient Near Eastern culture, lots of people associated sickness and physical disability

with sin.

And it's true that occasionally there can be a link like with the demonic, but in many

of the healing cases we've seen there's been no mention of sin at all.

Nature doesn't lay out a direct, consistent cause and effect relationship.

It's normal to adopt cultural beliefs as our own and assume they're true, so the cultural

mindset of sickness being sin adjacent has impacted even Jesus disciples.

When they meet a blind man, the disciples ask, who's to blame for this man's blindness

as he being punished for his own sin or for his parents sin?

And Jesus says, guess again, he's blind because this situation is going to be used to glorify

God.

It's probably challenging to them because one of the main reasons this whole way of thinking

evolved was as an attempt to avoid blaming God for suffering.

But here Jesus seems to put the onus on God.

He's flipping the script again.

This can be especially hard if we still have a hard time trusting that God is doing what

is good and best.

And frankly, it can still be hard even if you know that's true.

Fortunately, God is still at work in this man's story to heal and to redeem.

And guess what particular day it is when God chooses to do this work?

The Sabbath.

...